This Course will help you understand the ALE and IDOCs via a simple do-it-yourself example. Many examples will be provided for a comprehensive understanding of ALE and IDOCs. ALE is a mechanism by which SAP systems communicate with each other and with non-SAP EDI subsystems. Thus it helps integration of distributed systems. It supports fail-safe delivery which implies that sender system does not have to worry about message not reaching the source due to unavoidable situations. ALE can be used for migration and maintenance of master data as well as for exchanging transactional data. The messages that are exchanged are in the form of IDOCs or Intermediate Documents. IDOCs act like a container or envelope for the application data. An IDOC is created as a result of execution of an Outbound ALE. In an Inbound ALE an IDOC serves as an input to create application document. In the SAP system IDOCs are stored in the database tables. They can be used for SAP to SAP and SAP to non-SAP process communication as long as the participating processes can understand the syntax and semantics of the data. IDOC is a container that can be used to exchange data between any two processes. Each IDOC is assigned a unique number for tracking and future reference. IDOC consists of several segments, and segments contain several fields.
When a part of a business process is conducted in one system and another part of the same business process in another system, such procedure is termed as a distributed process. In this course, we will try to understand the followings:
Why a distributed process, Reasons for Distributed Process, What SAP wanted for its distribution solutions, What SAP wanted for its distribution solutions, SAP’s solution for its distribution requirements : Application Linking & Enabling or ALE
Application Linking & Enabling. SAP introduced ALE to to support a distributed yet integrated environment. ALE allows for efficient and reliable communication between distributed processes across physically separate systems. ALE is based on application to application integration using message control architecture. ALE is not based on any data replication technique. ALE architecture is independent of participating systems. This allows SAP to allow SAP to Non-SAP communication also. This allows third party applications to integrate with SAP using ALE at data distribution level. IDOCs constitute a major component of ALE. Release upgrades are supported by ALE. Features
Provisions of the standard system for ALE Pre-configured Master Data Scenarios Several master data objects in SAP have been enabled for ALE. Master data is the critical information that needs to be shared between several applications in a company. ALE is used to transfer both master & transactional data
IDOC : The term IDOC stands for Intermediate document. It is simply a data container used to exchange information between any two process. That can understand the syntax and semantics of the data. IDOC’s are made using the segments, IDOC’s are stored in the data base, Every IDOC has unique number, An IDOC is attached to a message type and identified by its message type and IDOC consists of three types of records
One control record
One or many data records
One or many status records.
Control Record : A control record contains all of the control information about an IDOC,
Sender and receiver information
port
partner type
Message type it represents
Its direction
IDOC Type
Data Record : In an IDOC the data record contains the application data.
Status Record : Status records are attached to an IDOC throughout the process as the IDOC achieves different milestones or encounter an error. At every milestone a status code, date and time are assigned.
The system defines numerous status code, 0 – 49 are reserved for outbound process, 50 and above are reserved for inbound process
